How Not To Make A Game For The App Store

A Call of Slender Zombie: Mini Temple Defense Dead Apocalypse (Free) by Jimmy On is one of the worst games that I’ve played in a while. It was an utter failure. Some readers wonder why we even bother doing reviews for bad apps instead of just ignoring them. I’ll tell you why. When developers don’t meet certain quality standards, they deserve to be called out on their shoddy work. Otherwise, they would just assume that their app didn’t get enough exposure or was buried in the App Store. A bad review sends a direct message to them that the product is the problem, not the consumers or the store.

This app has a name that is so long, I had to chop off the end to make it fit in the title of the review. There’s nothing wrong with a long title. There are plenty of apps with extra long titles. This title is filled with key phrases from other popular games, and it doesn’t make any sense either. The hope is that if you search for one of the popular games, this game will show up as well. Some of the titles and concepts were borrowed from Call Of Duty, Slender Man, Temple Run, Dead Ahead or Dead Trigger, and any zombie game that has the word ‘apocalypse’ in it.

The gameplay might have redeemed the game, but the messy control system and monotony killed any hope of salvation. To move your character, you drag your finger around the left side of the screen. To fire, you have to hold down on the right side of the screen and rotate your finger. The rotation on the right side is often unresponsive.

As you play, you can collect coins. These coins are used to unlock two additional characters: a girl and a policeman. The girl costs 5,000 coins, and the policeman costs 10,000.

There are in-app purchases for extra coins. You can buy three different packages. They range in price from $0.99 for 1,000 coins to $2.99 for 10,000. You can also purchase the kids mode, which means that you can’t die, for $4.99. To remove ads, it costs $1.99.

The ads in the game are annoying to say the least. They pop up when you’ve stopped touching the screen, when you go to buy something in the store, or when you change characters. The hassle of dealing with all of those ads outweighs the enjoyment gained from the game.

I don’t have any patience for people who cram their games full of popular phrases in order to manipulate the search system. It’s underhanded, and it shows that the game isn’t about quality or fun.

Skip this one. Good riddance.